Difference between revisions of "1936"

From PhalkeFactory
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It was a song and a sound that was punctuating the centuries. Wajid Ali Khan sang it when he was made to leave his naihar, Lakhnau.
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The sound was stitching centuries together at a precise point.
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One day a large man would let into his open eyes the form of the Nawab painted sometimes, among a meadow festooned with embroidered flowers, his revealed left nipple one among them...sometimes, looking like a gruff, proud old man bearing soft, plain white muslin on his body..As all those images entered the being of Amjad Khan, Wajid Ali would one day dance from within him.  
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Wajid Ali Khan thought it, as word, as sound of word when he was made to leave his naihar, Lakhnau.
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But that would happen tomorrow.  
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Wajid Ali whose relief was a private leisure house of the ras leela performed in kathak, where he played the lover, the beloved.
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Today, this dark eyed man with sensual eyes and lips was walking with a harmonium, singing the song of a forced estrangement, live before the camera. Wajid Ali Shah was finding a divine tongue. From within a well whose walls were wet with the honey of alcohol came that sound, that had sunk, deeper and deeper into the soil till it found the secret spring of song. That song would dissolve the boundaries of time that seperated Wajid Ali's moment from this one.
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The sound of those words outlived him.
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One day a large man would let into his open eyes, those many paintings of the Nawab, sometimes a hovering head over a chestful of the most delicately emboridred flowers, his own left nipple, like the largest flower in the meadow, flower and more than flower, peering out of the kurta, provocatively declaring his right to that pleasure.
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Or the more staid one at his tomb, where he looks like a gruff, proud old man, neverthelss bearing muslin that was soft on that skin. That day, Wajid Ali would dance from within Amjad Khan.  
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But that would happen on the morrow.  
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Today, this man who liked to look sensual in his photographs, revealed his simpler side as he walked across a moving camera, holding a harmonium, singing live.
  
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The gramaphone needle would tease out of the vinyl the stored  sound of a finger hitting the skin stretched across the table mouth. And the well of the gramaphone horn would crackle  with the thick wafting threads of the bow pulled across a taut string.
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Deep from within a well where, past the honeyed walls of alcohol, the voice struck a timeless spring- a chashma - because water is larger than history.
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The gramaphone needle would tease out of the vinyl the ancillary sound of a finger at a tabla, maybe at a loss with the voice, barely hitting the taut skin stretched across the tabla. And the well of the gramaphone horn would crackle  with the thick wafting threads of the bow pulled across a taut string.
  
 
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_BmHDD8rSM]
 
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_BmHDD8rSM]
  
 
the song, on youtube
 
the song, on youtube

Revision as of 20:53, 28 June 2010

The return to painting backdrops


Gangavtaran.jpg


this time making Kailasa out of a mountain around Kolhapur


The sound was stitching centuries together at a precise point.

Wajid Ali Khan thought it, as word, as sound of word when he was made to leave his naihar, Lakhnau.

Wajid Ali whose relief was a private leisure house of the ras leela performed in kathak, where he played the lover, the beloved. The sound of those words outlived him. One day a large man would let into his open eyes, those many paintings of the Nawab, sometimes a hovering head over a chestful of the most delicately emboridred flowers, his own left nipple, like the largest flower in the meadow, flower and more than flower, peering out of the kurta, provocatively declaring his right to that pleasure. Or the more staid one at his tomb, where he looks like a gruff, proud old man, neverthelss bearing muslin that was soft on that skin. That day, Wajid Ali would dance from within Amjad Khan. But that would happen on the morrow. Today, this man who liked to look sensual in his photographs, revealed his simpler side as he walked across a moving camera, holding a harmonium, singing live.



Deep from within a well where, past the honeyed walls of alcohol, the voice struck a timeless spring- a chashma - because water is larger than history.

The gramaphone needle would tease out of the vinyl the ancillary sound of a finger at a tabla, maybe at a loss with the voice, barely hitting the taut skin stretched across the tabla. And the well of the gramaphone horn would crackle with the thick wafting threads of the bow pulled across a taut string.

[1]

the song, on youtube